While Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry is eligible to sign a contract extension at any point now, Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review argues that the window to do so is much narrower with GM Ron Hextall’s general hesitance to work on in-season extensions. The 27-year-old has one year left on his deal that carries a $3.5MM cap hit and coming off a season that saw him post a 2.42 GAA with a .919 SV% in 58 games, he has a strong case to add a couple million to his next AAV based on the contracts handed out to the top goalies in free agency earlier this week. With that in mind, Benz suggests that Pittsburgh’s best strategy might be to wait as with so much of their roster locked up long-term already, if the team wants to have any sort of roster flexibility at all, it might have to come from the goaltending position and locking up Jarry now would take away that option.
More from the Metropolitan:
- While the Rangers have nearly $5MM in cap space left per CapFriendly, they still have to re-sign RFA winger Kaapo Kakko and add a depth defender or two. Beyond that, Larry Brooks of the New York Post suggests that GM Chris Drury should be sitting on his remaining cap space rather than trying to find a way to add another piece this summer. New York didn’t need to rely on banking in-season cap space a year ago since they were well under the Upper Limit but that won’t be the case anymore. Accordingly, if they think they’re going to want to add a piece or two in-season, the only way to have a chance of doing that is to bank as much cap space as possible early on to create enough room for those additions closer to the trade deadline.
- Hurricanes GM Don Waddell told Luke DeCock of the Raleigh News & Observer that he expects prospect defenseman Scott Morrow to turn pro after next season. The 19-year-old was a second-round selection (40th overall) back in 2021 but played quite well at UMass in his freshman year, notching 13 goals and 20 assists in just 38 games. If he’s able to build on that performance in 2022-23, Waddell feels that Morrow would be reaching a point where there will be nothing left to work on in college even though he’d still have two years of eligibility left at that point.
I could have told you before this article that Tim Benz was a dunce…but…
Jarry might not be in the Vaz/Shes top tier, but he’s one of only a handful of high end legit 1A starters left in the league. You don’t let him walk for “roster flexibility”.
Especially when you don’t NEED all that much “roster flexibility” when you have “so much of their roster locked up long-term already”and the parts of your roster that are locked up long term are the key (expensive) pieces.
Benz wants to let an All Star goalie walk so as to shore up that 4th line RW spot. Clever.
Yeah, I wonder what alternatives he would even consider in the same ballpark as Jarry? Unless you think last season was a fluke, lock him up.
Didn’t finish the thought after the Marino trade news broke…but…
We also have Dumo and Zucker coming off the books next year and plenty of money to resign Jarry. By the time we start getting into a cap crunch, the pandemic escrow payments should be over and the cap goes up big time.
Just dumb.
Mm, but I think the issue isn’t going to be whether they want to extend Jarry or not — I agree with you that he’s a fine goalie in his prime, the sort of guy you’d want to lock up. The issue is whether Jarry wants to hit the open market. You have to think he’ll be looking for something around $6MM AAV — heaven knows there are a lot more goalies earning $5MM or over who aren’t worth it than those who are.
Whether management will want to pay it to him is a big question. The “goalies are voodoo” line is all too accurate, and at one point, a GM thought (with some justification, anyway) that the likes of Price, Bobrovsky, Murray, Grubauer, Merzlikins, Lehner and Gibson were worth top dollar AND long term.
That’s why extending him right now should be Hextall’s priority.
Offer 4 years at $6 M or 5 years at $5 M and don’t be surprised if it takes 5 years at $6 M to get it done.
Which it probably would. That’s in Jarry’s interest, anyway. I question whether it’s in Pittsburgh’s.
Rangers dont have 5 mil in cap space. Blias is on ltir and when activated they only have 3.5
As far as that goes, yeah, Brooks’ advice is sound. How many teams were screwed because they were so tight up against the cap that they couldn’t so much as recall AHL players to cover for injuries, let alone make favorable deadline deals? IMHO, any GM for a contender who doesn’t set aside some cap space is a moron.
Luke DeCock…that’s an unfortunate last name.
Rangers have depth at D. Jones or Lundqvist to pair with Schneider and either of them with Hajek as BUs. Sit on the cap for the trade deadline – just in case.